Night Secrets (25 page)

“You mean, a man?”

“That's right.”

McBride smiled slyly. “You mean, like me real killer? The one she's protecting?”

Frank could tell be wasn't buying it. “Maybe,” he said with a quick shrug, then went on to something else. “How about anything else like that? Some little thing that got you to thinking.”

McBride considered it for a few seconds. “Well, I don't remember nothing very important along them lines,” he said finally. “Not the kind of thing you're looking for.”

“But something?” Frank asked hungrily. “What?”

“Well, when we were going back over everything, I asked her where she got the razor,” McBride said. “You know, just to pin that down.”

“What'd she say?”

“She said, ‘Off the floor.'”

“Those were her exact words?”

“Exact words.”

Frank wrote them down.

“And I said, ‘You mean, the razor was on the floor?'” McBride added. “And she said, ‘The bathroom.' And I said, ‘You mean, off the bathroom floor?' And she said, ‘Yes.'”

“Did she look nervous when this was going on?” Frank asked. “Like she'd missed something?”

McBride snapped his fingers. “For just that long she had that look,” he said. “She just went right back to herself.”

Frank wrote it down quickly, then looked back up at McBride. “When she gave the confession, how'd she seem?”

“Seem?” McBride asked.

“Did she look like she was having trouble with her story?”

“You mean, like she was sort of making it up as she went along?” McBride asked.

“Yeah.”

“No, she didn't look like that,” McBride said. “The only thing I can say is, she seemed mad as hell.” He took a sip from the Coke. “'Course, she's had a few bad days, I can't deny that. But the way she'd look at you, it was like she wanted to blow your head off right there, set the whole world on fire.” He shook his head. “The whole time, she looked like she just wanted to haul back and spit right in my face.”

Frank could see her face in his mind, the stark, threatening eyes, as if all the world had become the object of her vengeance.
You are like the rest
.

“And to tell you the truth, that's one of the things that made me think she did it,” McBride said. “I mean, besides being caught right there, and the blood and the fingerprints and all that kind of thing. I'm talking about the, what you might call, the
will
to do it. I could see it in her, that if she really got into it, she could pull it off.”

“Kill somebody?”

“Kill anybody,” McBride said. “It's not everybody that can actually take something to the limit that way.” He grew silent for a moment, his face growing somewhat red as the seconds passed. “A woman can get mad,” he said finally. “Real mad, but most times it don't amount to much, don't amount to nothing a man ever has to really be afraid of.” Suddenly his eyes glistened and his voice became a fierce, vehement whisper. “And more's the pity for that, Frank,” he said. “More's the fucking pity.”

F
arouk arrived at Frank's office just as he was heading up the stairs the next morning.

“You are going to Mrs. Phillips's home, yes?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Frank said as he mounted the final step.

“Perhaps, you wish to have a companion?”

“Why? Do you want to come along?”

“There is something that interests me,” Farouk said. He nudged Frank forward and the two of them began walking east on Forty-ninth Street.

“The license number which you gave me,” Farouk said. “I worked on it this morning.”

Frank glanced at his watch. It was only a little after eight. “You must have gotten on it pretty early,” he said.

“Like you, I do not always sleep.”

“Well, what did you find out about the limousine?” he asked.

“First of all, it does not belong to Mr. Devine,” Farouk told him.

“Who does it belong to?”

Farouk smiled darkly. “Winston Burroughs.”

“Who's that?”

“A most important man,” Farouk said. “But one who is not known for his charitable acts.”

They reached the corner of Eighth Avenue and waited for the light to change. Frank glanced back at the delicatessen on the comer. “I could use a cup of coffee,” he said.

Farouk nodded. “Yes, good. I will join you.”

They walked inside and took a table at the back. The waiter came and they both ordered coffees.

“Coffee, regular,” Farouk said unhappily after the waiter had disappeared. “It is all they have in such places.”

Frank lit a cigarette. “What do you know about this Burroughs guy?”

“That he is powerful,” Farouk said. “He moves in great circles. A British citizen, but an international businessman, and he also has diplomatic status. He would not be subject to the laws of this country.”

Frank looked at Farouk pointedly. “Is there any reason to think he's broken a few of them?”

Farouk shook his head. “None at all,” he said. “But to one who lives so high, the law seems far below.”

“You don't like him, do you?”

“I do not like his kind. People who live beyond the fear of consequences.”

The coffees arrived, and the two of them drank silently for a moment.

Farouk was the first to speak. “Burroughs has had important dealings with Devine.”

Again, frank thought about asking him how he knew such things, but stopped himself. “What kind of dealings?” he asked instead.

“Mostly it has been in oil and real estate,” Farouk said. “He is a man of many investments.”

“But everything looks legal?”

“Yes.”

“How about charities?”

“As I said, he is not a generous man.”

“But he must give away something.”

“He funds political parties,” Farouk said.

“What kind?”

“Those which would serve him well.”

“How?”

“Open their countries up to him,” Farouk said. “Markets. Resources. As we say in Arabic, ‘Buying and selling are the wind and rain.'”

Frank put out his cigarette and glanced at his watch. “We'd better get going.”

The two men got to their feet and headed toward the cashier at the front of the delicatessen.

Farouk walked out into the street and lingered there while Frank paid the check. He was looking at the delicatessen's name when Frank joined him on the street a few seconds later.

“Do you know what it means,” he asked, “La Femme Gatée?”

Frank shook his head.

Farouk thought a moment, struggling for the right translation. “The unruly … no, not exactly.” He considered it again, his eyes perusing the words a second time. “Yes,” he said finally. “That's it.” He looked at Frank. “The ungovernable woman,” he said. “She who cannot be ruled.” As he said it, something seemed to strike him suddenly.

Frank leaned toward him. “What is it?”

He didn't answer. Instead, he closed his eyes very slowly, then opened them.

“You must go alone today,” he said solemnly. “I have changed my mind. There is something else I must work on.” Then he turned and headed back down Forty-ninth Street, moving away so quickly that Frank didn't have time to ask him if he'd meant the night case or the day.

*     *     *

Frank had barely arrived at his usual place across the street from Phillips's brownstone when he saw her emerge from the building. She walked east to Madison Avenue, but this time crossed it and headed farther east, all the way to Park Avenue. Then she turned south, walked to the corner of Park and Sixtieth Street and stopped.

There was a large building just behind her, and after a moment, she walked behind one of its large black supporting columns. For a time, Frank couldn't see her. Then she came into view again, her hair still in place, her shoes the same, along with her dress, but with a red silk handkerchief dangling loosely from her hand.

She looked as if she'd used it to daub her eyes, but instead of returning it to her purse, she walked once again to the curb, then let it drop to the ground beside her.

Almost immediately, another limousine pulled up to the curb. This time it was a white Cadillac, and Frank recorded its license number quickly as Mrs. Phillips disappeared into its dark interior.

After it had pulled away, Frank walked over to where Mrs. Phillips had been standing. Her red handkerchief was fluttering gently on the sidewalk, and he bent down and picked it up. It was soft and very delicate, and he unconsciously ran it through his fingers while he watched the white limousine move slowly southward through the thick Park Avenue traffic. It was almost out of sight before he stuffed the handkerchief into his pocket and hailed a cab.

The white limousine went directly to Trump Tower, drove into the parking garage and disappeared, just as the black one had the day before.

Since there was no need to go into the building, Frank decided to maintain his surveillance from just outside the building. He slumped against the wall and watched as people moved in and out, whirling through the large bronze revolving doors. Most of them were tourists, since the building itself had become one of the city's most spectacular sights. Whole families stood gaping at its impressive exterior, men trudged inside to take pictures of the marble walls, greenery and waterfalls.

As he watched them, Frank thought of his own early days in the city, of the long walks with Karen, then the longer ones by himself, a rogue figure stalking through the city's twilight streets. Now more than ever, it was this that struck him as his appointed fate, to be forever the solitary night crawler that Tannenbaum had called him, wifeless, childless and, except for Farouk, utterly alone. It was not a fate that struck him anymore as entirely dreadful. He had come to accept it the way he accepted death, along with a vast number of deep, unrightable wrongs. And yet, there were times when this acceptance seemed like something broken in him, not a sign of strength or resignation, but of an old resistance that had lost its will.

He was still thinking vaguely of these things, smarting slightly under their invisible lash, when a black limousine pulled up in front of the Tower. Reflexively, he glanced at its license plate and realized that it was the same as the one he had written into his notebook the day before.

Two large men got out and took up positions on either side of the passenger door. One of them snapped a radio up to his mouth and said something. Then the other man bent forward and opened the door.

A short, somewhat stocky man got out of the car, moving awkwardly, as if he were pulling a heavy sack behind him. Almost immediately, another man stepped up to him and thrust out his hand. “Good to see you, Mr. Burroughs,” he said.

Burroughs smiled happily and shook his hand. “I am sorry,” he said, “but I have only twenty minutes.”

“Plenty of time, I hope,” the other man said cheerfully. “Please, come in.”

With that, the two men walked quickly into the lobby of Trump Tower, turned to the right and entered a luxury jewelry shop which glittered with diamonds and rubies, and which had been cleared of its usual number of gawking tourists.

Once Burroughs was inside, the two men from the limousine took up their positions on either side of the door and smiled sweetly as people passed them, glancing inside to watch Burroughs make his purchases.

It seemed only seconds before Burroughs stepped out of the shop and hustled back to his limousine, but it was enough time for Frank to confirm Farouk's impression, that he was a man who knew no consequences.

Frank stationed himself beside the revolving door once Burroughs's limousine had pulled away. If Mrs. Phillips left by the front door, instead of being whisked away in the limousine that had picked her up on Park Avenue, then he would be able to resume his surveillance. It was a chance he had to take, since he couldn't cover both places at the same time.